leveragefandomcom-20200222-history
The Bank Shot Job
While working a con on a corrupt county judge Judge Roy in the small desert town Juan, the team gets caught in the middle of a bank robbery. Nate and Sophie are taken as hostage, along with their mark. Now, they must not only find a way to keep their own con going without being discovered, but also figure out how to help desperate - and very amateur - armed robbers Derrick and Michael Clark. The Clients * Derrick, Ellen and Michael Clark * The Delgado Family (previous con) The Mark * Judge Roy The Con The Leverage team are on the last day of a Rip Deal con on the corrupt Judge Roy in the town of Juan. Nate posing as a money launderer has convinced Judge Roy to take his illbegotten cash out of a safe deposit box. Sophie is posing as an account manager. Nate gets the briefcase and is about to leave the bank when he spots two people acting suspiciously. Nate suspects a bank robbery and chooses not to leave Sophie alone in the bank. Judge Roy tries to talk the men down but is unsuccessful. Hardison and Parker pretend to be the FBI agents that the local police called and between facial recognition and Eliot's searching the house they discover they are Derrick and Michael Clark. They are acting oddly when they appear to be more worried they "don't have enough" than that the police have all the exits covered. Nate and Sophie talk to them separately and discover that Michael got involved with the local gang, helping to run meth but some went missing and they kidnapped his mother, Ellen. The meth dealers wanted either their meth back which Michael didn't have or $100,000 by 5 o'clock or they would kill her. Hardison creates a distraction by making up ransom demands and Parker breaks into the bank stealing Judge Roy's suitcase of money to pay the Clark's ransom. In the process she delivers the immortal line "Sometimes bad guys are the only good guys you get." Eliot takes the money to the ransom point and waits for the meth dealers. Nate is accidentally shot by Judge Roy and Sophie panics calling him by his name, this combined with Judge Roy noticing the briefcase is missing blows their cover. Roy reacts badly to the idea he has been duped, thinking the Clarks are in on it and takes the bank hostage. Eliot takes out the meth dealers and takes the money back to the bank. Hardison enters bank and talks to Roy, while making motions of surrender, i.e. putting his heads behind his neck and kneeling down in front of Roy. Then calling in the local police. The reveal Eliot brought back some of the meth dealers's meth and put it in Roy's suitcase, which Hardison brought in with the "ransom" pizza and the police open it to find meth which appears to explain Roy's erratic behavior. Roy claims that it was Nate and Sophie as well as Derrick and Michael who are the real criminals but a flashback reveals that Parker and Eliot got into the bank, disguised as paramedics and then while everyone else was distracted, Parker and Eliot switched clothes with the Clarks, enabling Derrick and Michael to get out under the pretense that they were medics escorting Nate in the ambulance. Eliot, Parker and Sophie claim that Roy just went crazy to the police officers. Roy implores Frank the bank manager to tell the truth, but he takes the opportunity to get back at Roy for his cruelty and leads the other witnesses to follow along with the Leverage team's story. Roy tells them to look at the camera's but Hardison has edited the security footage to make Judge Roy's footage look more incriminating with some audio footage even showing Sophie insisting that a badly injured Nate needs to get to a hospital and Roy stating that that isn't going to happen until he gets his money. Taggert and McSweeten show up as the FBI agents sent by the local branch just as the local police discover the meth dealers Eliot had tied up. The team then take the money that Hardison had hidden in the pizza box to give to the Delgado family, who were the original clients. Aliases * Carl (Nate) * Janet (Sophie) * FBI Special Agent Elmore (Parker) * FBI Special Agent Leonard (Hardison) Episode Notes * The fictional small town, Juan, is located in California's Imperial Valley, located along the California/Mexico border, east of San Diego. The Imperial Valley is a rich agricultural area, as well as popular recreational and tourist destination. Naval Air Field El Centro is the winter home of the U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, The Blue Angels. * This episode was originally intended to run mid-season, and was designed to show how the team had become a cohesive unit. * The episode contains the iconic line "Sometimes bad guys are the only good guys you get." which is delivered by Parker. * The episode also features the introduction of hapless FBI Special Agents Taggert and McSweeten. Originally, we were to meet them in "The Wedding Job", which was produced to be broadcast before this episode, but was later moved back in the schedule. * The bank interiors and exteriors were filmed in Pasadena, CA. Trivia * Parker and Hardison take the aliases Elmore and Leonard, respectively as an homage to Elmore Leonard. a popular author of crime fiction. * Early in the episode, Hardison, as Agent Leonard, refers to "chupacabra activity" along the Mexican border. A chupacabra is a mythical bi-pedal dragon-like creature believed to drink the blood of goats and other livestock (thus the name, which means "goat sucker".) Chupacabras are said to be roughly the size of a small bear, with a forked tongue, dark spots, and long spines down the back. Much like reports of the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot in other regions, reports of chupacabra sightings occur regularly from the southwestern US and Mexico to Central and South America, but cannot be substantiated. * This episode gave rise to a Leverage in-joke, known as "black box/ledger". It is designed to identify elements used in the show that are not real but seem to be (ledger) versus those are real but don't seem likely to be (black box). In one scene, Parker is able to get into the old bank building by crawling through a night depository conduit that supposedly was large enough for customers to submit ledgers with their night deposits -- except there never was such a practice and therefore, no need for such large conduits, much to the writers' surprise. In a later episode, they featured a jet's flight data recorder (aka its "black box"), which was colored orange. Many viewers believed the coloration was erroneous, but it is accurate (the color improving the box's visibility in deep water.) The black box/ledger joke developed in the writers room and was eventually passed on to fans via Rogers' blog. Production Media thumb|400px|left|Production Blog Category:Episodes Category:Season 1 Category:Bottle Episodes